Ayako Yonetani

Ayako Yonetani, DMA, violinist and violist, was born in
Kobe, Japan, where, at the age of five, she began violin studies with the
famous Saburo Sumi. Since winning the Japan National competition at age nine,
She has quickly ascended to the top ranks of Japan’s violinists.

Yonetani received her Bachelors, Masters, and Doctoral degrees from
the Juilliard School where she studied with Hyo Kang and the late Dorothy
DeLay, world-renowned violin pedagogue, who taught such artists as Perlman,
Midori, Cho-Liang Lin, Gil Shaham and Sarah Chang. Since 1989 she has assisted
the late Dorothy DeLay at the Juilliard pre-college division and at the Aspen
Music Festival and School. She held the Issac Stern concertmaster chair of the
Academy Orchestra at the Aspen Music Festival and School in 2001 and 2002.

After Yonetani moved to the US in
1982, she has appeared frequently as a recitalist in major cities such as New
York, San Francisco, Atlanta, Chicago, Minneapolis and Orlando. Since 1998, she
has performed over 300 concerts including 100 international concerts on three
continents. These appearances included numerous solo recitals, solos with
orchestras, chamber music and ensemble performances. These concerts took place
in prestigious venues such as Amsterdam’s Concertgebouw, Salzburg’s Mozarteum,
Vienna’s Musikverrein, Tokyo’s Kioi Hall, Slovak Republic’s Dome Umenia,
Dresden’s Semperoper, and Astana City Hall in Kazakhstan.

In addition to concert performances, her international reputation has
been enhanced by recordings and engagements as a master-teacher and/or judge
for musical competitions. Yonetani released a solo CD of
Tchaikovsky/Mendelssohn compositions, and she has participated in the
production of six ensemble CDs as a member of Kioi Sinfonietta Tokyo. Her Tchaikovsky/Mendelssohn
concerto CD with the Kosice Slovak State Philharmonic Orchestra was selected as
“The CD of the Month” by WMFE-90.7FM in October 2004. Her "Favourite" CD was favorably reviewed in the London-based Strad magazine. She has released her fourth solo double CD of the Beethoven Violin concerto with Beethoven cadenza, Beethoven Romances and the Brahms Violin concerto.

Currently she is a full professor of violin and viola at the University
of Central Florida and is also a member of Japan’s premier chamber ensemble,
Kioi Sinfonietta Tokyo. She has been chosen as an official artist, the first
violinist in its 30-year history for the Florida State Touring Program since
2006. Japan’s premier music publisher,
Ongaku no Tomo, published her Japanese translation of Barbara L. Sand’s book
Teaching Genius: Dorothy DeLay and the Making of a Musician in November, 2001.
The book went its fourth printing, and over 4500 copies have been sold. In 2006, she was elected as Honorary Crown Fellow at the Aspen
Institute.

The Kioi Sinfonietta Tokyo (currently the Kioi Hall Chamber Orchestra) gave its first American tour in May 2012, performing at the National Gallery of Arts in Washington, Verizon Hall in Philadelphia, Sanders Theater at Harvard in Boston, and the Avery Fischer Hall in New York. In May of 2011, Yonetani was invited back the Kosice Music Festival in
Slovakia to play on the tour with the Slovak
State Philharmonic of Kosice and she was invited back in 2015, 2017 and 2018 . She also played in the Gala concert of the
50-year anniversary of the Humenne Spring Music Festival. The President of Panama invited Yonetani to present a violin recital for
the benefit of Japanese Earthquake Victims in March 2012. She taught at the Hawaii Suzuki Summer Institute in 2014. Future concerts include concerts and recording with the Slovak State Philharmonic of Kosice, and several recitals and workshops in Kushiro and Kamakura, Japan, Bardejov, Humenne, and Michalovce, Slovakia, Aspen, and Spartanburg, SC in 2018.

Education

D.M.A. in Violin Performance from Juilliard School (1993)

M.M. in Violin Performance from Juilliard School (1987)

B.M. in Violin Performance from Juilliard School (1986)

Research Interests

Violin Performance (concert)

Joint research about music and the brain

Recent Research Activities

2015-2016 season

Performances (International)

Date – Description including titles of works performed, Location

May 12, 2015, Performed solo, Brahms concerto with the Slovak State Philharmonic of Kosice at Spisska Nova Ves, Slovakia